Saturday, May 25, 2013

A
French farmer who can no longer perform his routine farming duties
because of permanent pesticide injuries has had his day in court,
literally, and the perpetrator of his injuries found guilty of chemical
poisoning. The French court in Lyon ruled that Monsanto’s Lasso
weedkiller formula, which contains the active ingredient alachlor,
caused Paul Francois to develop lifelong neurological damage that
manifests as persistent memory loss, headaches, and stuttering during
speech.Reports indicate that the 47-year-old farmer sued Monsanto back in
2004 after inhaling the Lasso product while cleaning his sprayer tank
equipment. Not long after, Francois began experiencing lasting symptoms
that prevented him from working, which he says were directly linked to
exposure to the chemical. Since Lasso’s packaging did not bear adequate
warnings about the dangers of exposure, Francois alleged at the time
that Monsanto was essentially negligent in providing adequate protection
for its customers.To the surprise of many, the French court agreed with the claims and
evidence presented before it, declaring earlier this year that “Monsanto
is responsible for Paul Francois’ suffering after he inhaled the Lasso
product … and must entirely compensate him.” The court is said to be
seeking expert opinion on how to gauge Francois’ losses in order to
determine precisely how much Monsanto will be required to compensate him
in the case.“It is a historic decision in so far as it is the first time that a (pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning,” said Francois Lafforgue, Paul Francois’ lawyer, to Reuters earlier in the year.According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
exposure to alachlor can cause damage to the liver, kidneys, spleen,
and eyes, and may lead to the development of anemia and even cancer. The
EPA apparently views alachlor as so dangerous, in fact, that the agency
has set the maximum contaminant level goals (MCLG) for alachlor to zero
in order to “prevent potential health problems.” (http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/alachlor.cfm)In 2007, France officially banned Lasso from use in the country in
accordance with a European Union (EU) directive enacted in 2006
prohibiting the chemical from further use on crops in any member
countries. But despite all the evidence proving that alachlor can
disrupt hormonal balance, induce reproductive or developmental problems,
and cause cancer, the chemical is still being used on conventional
crops throughout the U.S. to this very day. (http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_ChemReg.jsp?Rec_Id=PC35160)“I am alive today, but part of the farming population is going to be
sacrificed and is going to die because of (alachlor),” added Francois to
Reuters.Source: http://www.realfarmacy.com/monsanto-found-guilty-of-chemical-poisoning-in-landmark-case1/

Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto
and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize found to
have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary
deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos
Bognar. Unlike many European Union countries, Hungary is a nation where
genetically modified (GM) seeds are banned. In a similar stance against
GM ingredients, Peru has also passed a 10 year ban on GM foods.Almost 1000 acres of maize found to have been ground with genetically
modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary, deputy state
secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said. The
GMO maize has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not
spread from the maize, he added.Unlike several EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary.
The checks will continue despite the fact that seek traders are obliged
to make sure that their products are GMO free, Bognar said.During the invesigation, controllers have found Pioneer Monsanto products among the seeds planted.The free movement of goods within the EU means that authorities will
not investigate how the seeds arrived in Hungary, but they will check
where the goods can be found, Bognar said. Regional public radio
reported that the two biggest international seed producing companies are
affected in the matter and GMO seeds could have been sown on up to the thousands of hectares in the country. Most of the local farmers have complained since they just discovered they were using GMO seeds.With season already under way, it is too late to sow new seeds, so this years harvest has been lost.And to make things even worse for the farmers, the company that
distributed the seeds in Baranya county is under liquidation. Therefore,
if any compensation is paid by the international seed producers, the
money will be paid primarily to that company’s creditors, rather than
the farmers.Source: NaturalSociety.comby Anthony Gucciardi

Could the global tide in
support of GMOs be turning? A new report reveals that the formerly
pro-GMO Chinese government, one of the largest consumers of GMO food
crops in the world, is beginning to crack down on GM corn shipments from
the US that have not followed appropriate biosafety regulations.According to a news brief released today by GMWatch.org, China destroyed three shipments of GM corn imported from the US. GMWatch.org reported:

"The law says that the [Chinese] Ministry of Agriculture must
require environmental and food safety tests to be carried out by Chinese
institutions, in order to verify data provided by the seed developer.
All these documents must be reviewed by the National Biosafety Committee
before the MOA can issue a safety certificate. Yet these shipments of
US corn did not have the relevant safety certificates and approval
documents, according to the news reports below."

Recently, the Harbin Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau
intercepted inbound mail of 21 cartons of corn seeds from USA, totaling
115 kgs, which were detected as GM seeds. This is the first time
that the Heilongjiang Provincial Inspection and Quarantine System has
intercepted inbound corn seeds containing GM ingredients. These corn
seeds will be destroyed. *

Surprisingly, despite these seemingly drastic steps by Chinese authorities to destroy GM seeds, an article in China Daily
from last year explains that the consumption of GM soybeans is already
universal in China, even despite widespread public concerns that they
have not been adequately safety tested:

Summary: Imported RR soybeans (Roundup herbicide
resistant GM soybeans) has already accounted to over 80% of total
consumption of soybeans in China, but the assessment and approval
procedures for the initial imported GM soybeans, has been oppugned that
it's examination procedures exists with defects. According to news
reports, on Feb. 20, 2012, Gu Xiu-lin and other three citizens upon
application were approved to check the "certification documents for the
GM soybeans obtaining safety certificates".

The China Daily article
goes on to quote Shi Yan-quan, Deputy Director, Agricultural Finance
and Education Dept., who stated on April 20, 2012, that over 50 million tons of GMO soybeans were imported to China in 2011 alone.
The article also refers to the fact that for eight years, 1.3 billion
Chinese consumers have been consuming Monsanto's GM food crops, relying
entirely on biotech-funded safety evaluations, without any independent
safety testing carried out by the Chinese government. Additionally, a
revealing study published in 2012
found that the Chinese print media is completely co-opted by biotech
industry influence. They revealed that "48.1% of articles were largely
supportive of the GM technology research and development programs and
the adoption of GM cottons, while 51.9% of articles were neutral on the
subject of GMOs. Risks associated with GMOs were mentioned in the
newspaper articles, but none of the articles expressed negative tones in
regards to GMOs." The authors concluded: "Chinese print media is
largely supportive of GMOs. It also indicates that the print media
describes the Chinese government as actively pursuing national GMO
research and development programs and the promotion of GM cotton usage."Are these latest incidents a sign that the Chinese government is
beginning to take more seriously the health threats associated with the
consumption of genetically modified food? According to the GMWatch.org
report's primary informant, who for purposes of anonymity goes by the
pseudonym "Mr. Li":

"[T]he new government's decisive move to destroy the illegal GMOs
"progressive, encouraging, and satisfying". He regards it as a sign that
it is keeping its promise to work for the people and the nation.
Mr Li said: "The deeply pro-GMO old government would not have made
such a thing public. It would have secretly returned the shipments, or
in most cases it would not even have inspected shipments that could
contain GM ingredients."

Bills
have been introduced in the Assembly by Democrat Linda Rosenthal and
the Senate by Republican Kenneth LaValle. They could make New York the
first state in the nation to require labels for GMO food.

Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal is the lead sponsor of a bill that would require manufacturers to label GMO foods.

It is an issue whose time may have come.
Two bills have been introduced in the New York Legislature that would
make the state the first in the nation to mandate the labeling of
genetically modified food.
Sponsored in the Assembly by Democrat Linda Rosenthal and in the Senate by Republican Kenneth LaValle, the bill is the fifth in five years to be introduced in the legislature, and comes amid the growing spread and scrutiny of GMO products.
“Clearly this is an issue that has found resonance with my
constituents,” Rosenthal, whose district includes the upper West Side of
Manhattan, told the Daily News. “When it comes to what you put into
your body, it’s important that, as a consumer, you know as much as
possible.”
Companies like Monsanto and DuPont, which develop and sell the seeds
for GMO crops, have poured billions of dollars in to defeating voter
measures such as California’s Proposition 37 that would mandate
labeling.
“We oppose current initiatives to mandate labeling of ingredients
developed from GM seeds in the absence of any demonstrated risks,”
Monsanto says on its website. “Such mandatory labeling could imply that
food products containing these ingredients are somehow inferior to their
conventional or organic counterparts.”RELATED: SENATE DEMS FAIL TO OVERTURN ‘MONSANTO PROTECTION ACT’
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate defeated a proposed amendment to the farm
bill that explicitly stated that states have the right to require that
manufacturers of GMO foods label their products. During the same
session, Senate Republicans also quashed an attempt to overturn the
so-called “Monsanto Protection Act,” a measure slipped into a government
spending bill that circumvents judicial authority concerning the
planting and development of genetically modified seeds deemed to be
unhealthy for human consumption.
“The momentum has been building in New York as well other states.
Vermont, Maine and Connecticut are all looking at requiring labels,”
Rosenthal, whose bill now has 41 co-sponsors in the Assembly, said. “A
lot of people are keeping an eye on Monsanto and food safety.”
On Thursday, the Connecticut Senate easily passed its own GMO labeling
requirement, only to have the bill drastically revised by the House. The
measure now returns to the Senate, but its fate is in doubt.
Monsanto, meanwhile, argues that there is no data to support the claims
that genetically modified products are harmful to human health.

gmofreeny.net

Tje websote GMO Free NY urges
people to put pressure on their representatives so that Assembly Bill
A3525 and Senate Bill S3835 will come up for a vote before the current
legislative session ends on June 20.

“The safety of our products is our first priority, and multiple health
societies, hundreds of independent scientific experts and dozens of
governments around the world have determined that foods and ingredients
developed through biotechnology [or genetic modification (GM)] are
safe,” Monsanto said in a statement on its website.
The Food and Drug Administration has deemed GMO foods to be safe and
more or less indistinguishable from their non-genetically-modified
equivalents.RELATED: U.S. STATE DEPT. HELPED PROMOTE MONSANTO PRODUCTS OVERSEAS
“We recognize and appreciate the strong interest that many consumers
have in knowing whether a food was produced using genetic engineering,”
the FDA said in a statement. “The FDA supports voluntary labeling for
food derived from genetic engineering.”
For New York activist Stacie Orell, the campaign director of GMO Free NY, the lack of long-term health studies is troubling.
“Because the jury is still out on human health effects, I’d like to be
able to take a cautious approach,” Orell told the News. “Labels would
allow me to do that.”
Having graduated this spring from NYU with a master’s degree in
environmental conservation education, Orell has helped launch GMO Free’s
website,
Facebook page and Twitter feed to try and convince New Yorkers to put
pressure on their legislators to allow Rosenthal’s bill to come up for a
vote.
“This issue is not going away,” Orell said. “People are becoming more engaged.”
Rosenthal points to laws requiring the labeling of GMO products that
have been passed in countries such as China, Russia, India, Brazil and
much of the European Union as a sign that fears about bio-tech foods are
warranted.
“Sixty-four countries require GMO labeling,” Rosenthal said. “That says something to me.”
Rosenthal and LaValle have until June 20, when the current legislative
session ends, to convince their colleagues to bring the bill to a vote.DKnowles@nydailynews.com

Friday, May 24, 2013

5 Most Horrifying Things About Monsanto -- Why You Should Join the Global Movement and Protest on Saturday ByApril M. Short

Fed
up with health concerns, environmental threats and political
corruption, a Utah mom organizes a global movement against the biotech
giant.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Africa Studio

May 22, 2013 |

Fed up with the fact that she has to spend “a small fortune” in
order to feed her family things she says “aren’t poisonous,” Tami Canal
of Utah has organized a global movement against the giant chemical and
seed corporation Monsanto. Monsanto is the conglomerate mastermind
behind many of the pesticides and genetically engineered seeds that
pervade farm fields around the world. Monsanto
produces the world’s top-selling herbicide; 40 percent of US crops
contain its genes; it spends millions lobbying the government each year;
and several of its factories are now toxic Superfund sites.

Canal,
who has a 17-month-old baby and a six-year-old girl, cites concerns
over public health, adverse affects on the environment, and political
corruption as her motivation to organize against the biotech giant. And
her concern has resonated. Protesters around the world have responded to
Canal’s call to action, and will amplify their dissatisfaction with the
corporation in a “March Against Monsanto” on May 25.

“Not
only are they threatening our children and ourselves as well, but also
the environment,” Canal says. “The declining bee population has been
linked to the pesticides that they use, and that’s just the start. I’ve
been reading studies recently that butterflies are starting to
disappear, and birds. It’s only a matter of time, it’s pretty much a
domino effect.”

What started as one mother’s call to
action on a Facebook page has become a movement with more than 400
demonstrations scheduled in 50 countries and 250 cities around the
globe. The events are organized online via an open Google Document,
where people can find the protest nearest them. The March Against
Monsanto Facebook page has received more than 105,000 “likes.” It has
reached more than 10,000,000 people in the last week according to its website, which averages over 40,000 visitors per day.

One
of the short-term goals of the march, Canal says, is to spread
immediate awareness about the offenses Monsanto commits. Another is to
inspire people to vote with their dollars by boycotting Monsanto-owned
companies that put unsafe products—like genetically modified organisms
(GMO) and pesticide-ridden foods—on the market. The effort also
advocates for labeling of genetically modified products so consumers can
make informed decisions, and demands further scientific research on the
health effects of GMOs.

Canal is particularly
interested in drawing attention to what she calls dangerous products
that are marketed to children. “Like Kellogg's,” she says. “For example,
Froot Loops is 100-percent genetically engineered, and that’s a
children's cereal. That’s irresponsible and unacceptable on so many
levels.”

The ultimate goal of the march is a complete
ban on Monsanto within the US. At least 60 countries worldwide,
including Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan,
New Zealand, Peru, South Australia, Russia, France, and Switzerland,
have implemented outright bans of Monsanto and its genetic modification
of food products.

“I don’t understand why the US isn’t
on the forefront of that thinking,” says Canal. “[Monsanto] has a long
history of crimes against humanity.”

Here are the five most disturbing reasons you should join the March Against Monsanto:

1. Profiteering poisonous chemical company posing as agribusiness.

Remember
the horrors of Operation Ranch Hand during the Vietnam War, when the US
military designed a chemical warfare program and used the herbicide and
defoliant Agent Orange to kill and maim 400,000 people (estimated by
the Vietnam government), and ultimately cause birth defects for 500,000
children? Monsanto made that possible.

Monsanto began as a chemical company
in 1901 and was responsible for some of the most damaging toxins in US
history, like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s), and dioxin. Consumer
advocacy group Food and Water Watch (FWW) released a report
on APril 3 detailing Monsanto’s role in chemical disasters, Agent
Orange, and the first genetically modified plant cell. The report shows
that the “feed-the-world” agricultural and life sciences company
Monsanto markets itself as today is only a recent development. The
majority of Monsanto’s history is involved with heavy industrial
chemical production, including the supply of Agent Orange to the US for
Vietnam operations from 1962-'71.

Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Association told Common Dreams, in response to the FWW report:

Despite
its various marketing incarnations over the years, Monsanto is a
chemical company that got its start selling saccharin to Coca-Cola, then
Agent Orange to the U.S. military, and in recent years, seeds
genetically engineered to contain and withstand massive amounts of
Monsanto herbicides and pesticides. Monsanto has become synonymous with
the corporatization and industrialization of our food supply.

Another
example, according to the FWW corporate profile, is a Monsanto plant in
Sauget, Illinois that produced 99 percent of PCBs until they were
banned in 1976. PCBs are carcinogenic and harmful to multiple organs and
systems, but they're still illegally dumped into waterways. They
accumulate in plants and food crops, as well as fish and other aquatic
lifeforms, which enter the human food supply. The Sauget plant is now
home to two Superfund sites.

Monsanto’s chemicals continue to impact the world, both inside and outside of the United States, and Monsanto has settled a number of chemical lawsuits in the last couple of years alone. Scientific studies have linked the chemicals in Monsanto’s Roundup pesticides to Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimers disease, autism and cancer.

Another example of Monsanto’s chemical folly came in February when a French court declared Monsanto guilty
of chemical poisoning of French grain grower, Paul Francois. The farmer
suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and
stammering after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso weedkiller in 2004, and
blames the agri-business giant for not providing adequate warnings on
the product label.

AlterNet published an article
in April titled, “Exposed: Monsanto’s Chemical War Against Indigenous
Hawaiians,” which details a series of protests on the five Hawaiian
Islands Monsanto and other biotech companies have turned into the
world’s “ground zero” for chemical testing and food engineering.

2. Building a monopoly, putting farmers out of work.

There
is nothing more quintessentially American than the independent family
farmer; and there is nothing more un-American than stomping out that
farmer’s livelihood to bolster your corporate monopoly. Monsanto is
attempting this as it sues small farmers out of their livelihoods time
and again.

You might have heard about
the 75-year-old soybean farmer from Indiana, Vernon Hugh Bowman, who
was ordered in the beginning of May to pay Monsanto $85,000 in damages
for using second-generation seeds genetically modified with Monsanto’s
pesticide resistant “Roundup Ready,” treatment. He pulled the seeds from
the local grain elevator, which is usually used for feed crop, and
planted them. The court decided Monsanto’s patent extends even to the
offspring of its seeds, and the farmer had violated the company’s
patent.

Bowman is by no means the only US farmer to be sent into debt at Monsanto’s hands. Monsanto reported
enormous profits from 2012 to shareholders in January, while American
farmers filed into Washington, DC to challenge the corporation’s right
to sue farmers whose fields have become contaminated with Monsanto’s
seeds. Oral arguments began on January 10 before the U.S. Court of
Appeals to decide whether to reverse the cases' dismissal last February.
The corporation’s total revenue reached $2.94 billion at the end of
2012, and its earnings nearly doubled analysts' projections.

In the article, “Monsanto's Earnings Nearly Double as They Create a Farming Monopoly”—originally published in Al Jazeera and reprinted
on AlterNet on January 16—Charlotte Silver outlines how Monsanto has
increased the price of the Roundup herbicide and exploiting its patent
on transgenic corn, soybean and cotton, to gain control over those
agricultural industries in the US, “…effectively squeezing out
conventional farmers (those using non-transgenic seeds) and eliminating
their capacity to viably participate and compete on the market.” The
company also uses its power to coerce seed dealers out of stocking many
of its competitor products.

Monsanto was under
investigation by the Department of Justice for violating anti-trust laws
by practicing anticompetitive activities towards other biotech
companies until the end of 2012. The investigation was quietly closed
before the end of last year.

Monsanto exerts vast control over the seed industry.
It started buying out seed companies as early as 1982. Some of
Monsanto’s most significant purchases were Asgrow (soybeans), Delta and
Pine Land (cotton), DeKalb (corn), Seminis (vegetables) and Holden’s
Foundation Seeds (in 1997). Monsanto is unmatched in its tactics for
squashing its competition, but the US has not put its antitrust laws
into practice to clamp down on the corporate monopoly it's forming.

3. Controlling the food, privatizing the water.

Half of the Earth’s population will live in an area with significant water stress by 2030, according to estimates
from the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development.
Corporations like Monsanto (along with Royal Dutch Shell and Nestle) are
vying for a future in which free water supply is a thing of the past,
and private companies control public water sources.

According to a government report titled "Intelligence Community Assessment; Global Water Security,"
by 2025, the world's population will likely exceed 8 billion people,
and the demand for water will be 40 percent higher than sustainable
water supplies available, with water needs of around 6,900 billion cubic
meters due to population growth.

Private corporations already own 5 percent of the world's fresh water.
Billionaires and companies, including Monsanto, are purchasing the
rights to groundwater and aquifers. In an even more ominous twist,
Monsanto is accused of dumping its plethora of toxic chemicals,
including PCBs, dioxin and glyophosate (Roundup) into the water supply
of various nations worldwide. Then, seeing a profitable market niche, it
has begun privatizing those water sources it polluted, filtering the
water, and selling it back to the public.

4. Running the FDA, writing its own protection laws.

Ex-Monsanto
executives run the United States Food and Drug Administration, the
agency tasked with ensuring food safety for the American public.

This
obvious conflict of interest could explain the lack of government-led
research on the long-term effects of GM products. Recently, the U.S.
Congress and president together passed the law that has been dubbed
“Monsanto Protection Act.” Among other things, the new law bans courts
from halting the sale of Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds.

The
pro-Monsanto “Farmer Assurance Provision, Section 735,” rider was
quietly slipped into Agricultural Appropriations provisions of the HR
933 Continuing Resolution spending bill, designed to avert a federal
government shutdown. It states that the department of agriculture
“shall, notwithstanding any other provisions of law, immediately grant
temporary permits to continue using the [GE] seed at the request of a
farmer or producer [Monsanto].”

Obama signed the law on
March 29. It allows the agribusiness giant to promote and plant GMO and
GE seeds free from any judicial litigation that might deem such crops
unsafe. Even if a court review determines that a GMO crop harms humans,
Section 735 allows the seeds to be planted once the USDA approves them.

Public health lawyer Michele Simon told the New York Daily News
the Senate bill requires the USDA to “ignore any court ruling that
would otherwise halt the planting of new genetically mengineered crops.”

Their environmental blunders don’t stop there. In 2002 the Washington Post published a piece titled “Monsanto Hid Decades of Pollution,” outlining the corporation’s pollution of an Alabama town with toxic PCBs for decades without disclosure.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) published an articledebunking Monsanto’s claim that it is a “leader and innovator in sustainable agriculture.”

While
Monsanto advertises its technology as important to achieving such goals
as adequate global food production and “reducing agriculture's negative
impacts on the environment,” the UCS says in reality, the corporate
giant stands in the way of sustainable agriculture.

For
one, Monsanto’s policies promote pesticide resistance. “Their
RoundupReady and Bt technologies lead to resistant weeds and insects
that can make farming harder and reduce sustainability,” reads the UCS
article.

The article also notes that Monsanto’s policies
increase herbicide use, which can cause health effects, and perpetuates
gene contamination, as engineered genes tend to show up in non-GE
crops. Additionally, the UCS says Monsanto is a purveyor of monoculture
because it focuses only on limited varieties of a few commodity crops,
reducing biodiversity, and as a result, increasing pesticide and
fertilizer pollution.

The union points out that
Monsanto’s lobbying, advertising and stronghold over research on its
products makes it difficult for farmers and policymakers to make
informed decisions about more sustainable agriculture.

Finally,
UCS says Monsanto contributes little to helping the world feed itself,
and has failed to endorse science-backed solutions that don't give its
products a central role.

***

Tami
Canal encourages those who can’t make it to the March Against Monsanto
on Saturday to support and foster relationships with their local
farmers, buy organic, plant a vegetable garden, and become more
self-sustainable. “That is definitely the one way to break the bond
Monsanto has on us,” she says. “People should get involved because this
is basically an outright attack on humanity.”

The US is protecting Monsanto

genetically altered pesticides

which are killing off the bees

(and birds), despite a European

ban.

The shocking minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past
week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leader's
“extreme outrage” over the Obama regime's continued protection of global
seed and plant bio-genetic
giants, Syngenta and Monsanto, in the face of a growing “bee
apocalypse” that the Kremlin warns “will most certainly” lead to world
war.

According to these minutes, released in the Kremlin today by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (MNRE), Putin was so incensed over the Obama regime's refusal to discuss this grave matter that he refused for three hours to
even meet with Kerry—who had traveled to Moscow on a scheduled
diplomatic mission—but then relented so as not to cause an even greater
rift between these two nations.

At the center of this dispute between Russia and the US, this MNRE report says, is the “undisputed evidence” that a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically related to nicotine, known as neonicotinoids,
are destroying our planets bee population, and which, if left
unchecked, could destroy our world’s ability to grow enough food to feed
its population.

So
grave has this situation become, the MNRE reports, the full European
Commission (EC) this past week instituted a two-year precautionary ban (set to begin on 1 December 2013) on these “bee killing” pesticides, following
the lead of Switzerland, France, Italy, Russia, Slovenia and
Ukraine—all of whom had previously banned these most dangerous of
genetically altered organisms from being used on the continent.

Two of the most feared neonicotinoids being banned are Actara and Cruiser, made by the Swiss global bio-tech seed and pesticide giant Syngenta AG that employs over 26,000 people in over 90 countries, and ranks third in total global sales in the commercial agricultural seeds market.

Important to note, this report says, is that Syngenta, along with bio-tech giants Monsanto, Bayer, Dow and DuPont, now control nearly 100% of the global market for genetically modified pesticides, plants and seeds.

“As part of a study on
impacts from the world’s most widely used class of insecticides,
nicotine-like chemicals called neonicotinoids, the American Bird
Conservancy (ABC) has called for a ban on their use as seed treatments, and
for the suspension of all applications, pending an independent review
of the products’ effects on birds, terrestrial and aquatic
invertebrates, and other wildlife.

“It
is clear that these chemicals have the potential to affect entire food
chains. The environmental persistence of the neonicotinoids, their
propensity for runoff and for groundwater infiltration, and their
cumulative and largely irreversible mode of action in invertebrates
raise significant environmental concerns,” said Cynthia Palmer,
co-author of the report and Pesticides Program Manager for ABC, one of
the nation’s leading bird conservation organizations.

ABC
commissioned world renowned environmental toxicologist Dr. Pierre
Mineau to conduct the research. The 100-page report, “The Impact of the
Nation’s Most Widely Used Insecticides on Birds,” reviews 200 studies on
neonicotinoids including industry research obtained through the US
Freedom of Information Act. The report evaluates the toxicological risk
to birds and aquatic systems and includes extensive comparisons with the
older pesticides that the neonicotinoids have replaced. The assessment
concludes that the neonicotinoids are lethal to birds and to the aquatic
systems on which they depend.

“A
single corn kernel coated with a neonicotinoid can kill a songbird,”
Palmer said. “Even a tiny grain of wheat or canola treated with the
oldest neonicotinoid — called imidacloprid — can fatally poison a bird.
And as little as 1/10th of a neonicotinoid-coated corn seed per day
during egg-laying season is all that is needed to affect reproduction.”

The
new report concludes that neonicotinoid contamination levels in both
surface and ground water in the United States and around the world are
already beyond the threshold found to kill many aquatic invertebrates.”

Just
how bad the world’s agricultural system has really become due to these
genetically modified plants, pesticides and seeds,
this report continues, can be seen by the EC’s proposal this past week,
following their ban on neonicotinoids, in which they plan to criminalize
nearly all seeds and plants not registered with the European Union,
and as we can, in part, read:

“Europe
is rushing towards the good ol days circa 1939, 40… A new law proposed
by the European Commission would make it illegal to “grow, reproduce or
trade” any vegetable seeds that have not been “tested, approved and
accepted” by a new EU bureaucracy named the “EU Plant Variety Agency.”

It’s
called the Plant Reproductive Material Law, and it attempts to put the
government in charge of virtually all plants and seeds. Home gardeners who grow their own plants from non-regulated seeds would be considered criminals under this law.”

This
MRNE report points out that even though this EC action may appear
draconian, it is nevertheless necessary in order to purge the continent
from continued contamination of these genetically bred “seed
monstrosities.”

“After
his victory in the 2008 election, Obama filled key posts with Monsanto
people, in federal agencies that wield tremendous force in food issues,
the USDA and the FDA: At the USDA, as the director of the National
Institute of Food and Agriculture, Roger Beachy, former director of the
Monsanto Danforth Center. As deputy commissioner of the FDA, the new
food-safety-issues czar, the infamous Michael Taylor, former
vice-president for public policy for Monsanto. Taylor had been
instrumental in getting approval for Monsanto’s genetically engineered
bovine growth hormone.”

“The US House of Representatives quietly passed a last-minute addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 last week – including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks.

The rider, officially known as the Farmer Assurance Provision,
has been derided by opponents of biotech lobbying as the “Monsanto
Protection Act,” as it would strip federal courts of the authority to
immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO)
seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns.

The
provision, also decried as a “biotech rider,” should have gone through
the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees for review. Instead, no
hearings were held, and the piece was evidently unknown to most
Democrats (who hold the majority in the Senate) prior to its approval as
part of HR 993, the short-term funding bill that was approved to avoid a
federal government shutdown.”